[177] The bridge at Alcantara had been rendered impassable by the blowing up of one of the arches. The ingenuity displayed by the engineers in rendering it available for the passage of an army, was most creditable to that department.
[178] Têtes-des-ponts are thrown up to cover a communication across a river, and favour the movements of an army advancing into, or retreating from, an enemy’s country. The form, size, and strength of a tête-du-pont must be entirely regulated by locality and circumstances. A tête-du-pont may be composed of a horn-work defended by batteries on the opposite bank—or it may be a half square fort with bastions—or half a star fort—or redoubts disposed to flank each other.
[179] “Coming from Castile, the traveller descends from this ridge into a country, where, for the first time, the gum-cistus appears as lord of the waste; the most beautiful of all shrubs in the Peninsula for the profusion of its delicate flowers, and one of the most delightful for the rich balsamic odour which its leaves exude under a southern sun, but which overspreads such extensive tracts, where it suffers nothing else to grow, that in many parts both of Portugal and Spain, it becomes the very emblem of desolation.”—Southey.
[180] Leith Hay’s account of the destruction of the bridge differs from Southey’s. “Those who first succeeded in gaining the right bank cut away the three boats nearest to that end of the bridge, by which means the survivors of the garrisons of Fort Napoleon and the tête-du-pont were prevented escaping.”
[181] “Our bivouac, as may be supposed, presented an animated appearance; groups of soldiers cooking in one place; in another, some dozens collected together, listening to accounts brought from the works by some of their companions whom curiosity had led thither; others relating their past battles to any of the young soldiers who had not as yet come hand-to-hand with a Frenchman; others dancing and singing; officers’ servants preparing dinner for their masters, and officers themselves, dressed in whatever way best suited their taste or convenience, mixed with the men, without any distinguishing mark of uniform to denote their rank.”
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“The whole appearance of what had been a French bivouac for a fortnight was perfectly characteristic of that nation. Some clever contrivances for cooking, rude arm-racks, a rough table, and benches to sit round it, still remained; while one gentleman had amused himself by drawing likenesses of British officers with a burnt stick, in which face, figure, and costume, were most ridiculously caricatured; while another, a votary of the gentle art of poesy, had immortalized the charms of his mistress in doggrel verses, scratched upon the boards with the point of a bayonet.”—The Bivouac.
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“In bivouacs, the squabble for quarters is extended and transferred to a choice and dispute for the possession of trees, and I have heard of officers being, sorely against their will, flushed like owls, and made to decamp from an evergreen oak, or other umbrageous tree.
“Nothing more exemplifies the vicissitudes of a soldier’s life, than the different roofs that cover our heads within a week: one day we have all the advantages of a palace, and the next the dirt and misery of the worst chaumiere, sometimes even in the same day. A fortnight ago, just after the battle of Orthez, opposite Aire, our regiment being in the advance, we established ourselves in a magnificent chateau, certainly the best furnished house I have seen since I left England, decorated with a profusion of fine or-molu clocks. Just as we had congratulated ourselves on our good luck, and prospect of comfort, and I had chosen for myself a red damask bed, an awful bustle was heard, indicative of no good, as was speedily proved to our discomfiture. Whether it was a judgment upon us for looking so high as a chateau, on the principle of those who exalt themselves being abased, I leave to divines to decide; but we quickly learned, that in consequence of the fourth division treading on our heels, and Sir Lowry Cole having as sharp an eye for an eligible chateau as ourselves, he had ordered his aide-de-camp to oust all its inmates under the rank of a major-general.